Alumni Success Stories
-
Matt Chmura ’03
Communications executive -
Ann Dowd ’78
Actress - TV, film, stage -
Jim Collins ’87
Biomedical engineer -
Anthony Fauci '62
AIDS researcher -
Jon Favreau ’03
Obama’s speechwriter -
Peter Jankowski ’86
Producer, Law & Order -
Edward P. Jones ’72
Award-winning novelist -
Chris Matthews ’67
Host, Hardball -
Joyce O’Shaughnessy ’78
Prominent oncologist -
J.D. “Dave” Power III ’53
Founder, J.D. Power -
Carolyn Risoli ’86
President, Marc Jacobs -
Mary Pat Ryan ’78
Marketing executive -
Bernadette Semple '82
U.S. Navy Commander -
Bart Sher '81
Tony Award winner -
Clarence Thomas '71 Supreme Court justice -
Maggie Wilderotter '77
Telecommunications CEO
View extended list of distinguished alumni »
Alumni Success Stories
Bart Sher '81
Bartlett Sher ’81 plays on a very large stage. Still as intense and long-haired as when he arrived at Holy Cross to study philosophy, Sher now earns glittering accolades in the theater world, including a 2008 Tony award. Described by The New York Times as “... one of the most original and exciting directors, not only in the American theater but also in the international world of opera,” Sher won his Tony as best director of a musical for the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific.
No stranger to the Tonys, Sher has been nominated for directing New York productions three times before, and the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, where he is artistic director, took the Outstanding Regional Theater Tony in 2006. Never one to rest on his laurels, after his South Pacific triumph, he dove into a new production of Roméo et Juliette at the Salzburg Festival and is scheduled to direct two more operas at the Met.
Sher began his theater career at Holy Cross. For his senior thesis in English, he wrote a play – Fish Every Day – that was staged in Fenwick Theatre. In retrospect, he describes it as “a crazy, upside-down play about Catholic School, with its own language and weird rituals. It caused an uproar.” He went on to teach English in San Francisco, start a theater company in San Diego, earn a graduate degree at the University of Leeds, and hone his craft at some of America’s best regional theaters.